In recent years, the number of small-footprint sensor-containing devices such as smart phones, wearable devices and various other “Internet of Things” (IoT) devices available to consumers have been increasing dramatically. Many of these devices comprise sensors capable of detecting voiced commands; in some cases, sensors for detecting signals of other modalities such as gestures, touch pressure levels, gaze direction changes and the like may also be incorporated in these devices. The small-footprint devices are often designed to communicate with server farms at data centers which can be used to perform compute-intensive tasks.
While embodiments are described herein by way of example for several embodiments and illustrative drawings, those skilled in the art will recognize that embodiments are not limited to the embodiments or drawings described. It should be understood, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit embodiments to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to. When used in the claims, the term “or” is used as an inclusive or and not as an exclusive or. For example, the phrase “at least one of x, y, or z” means any one of x, y, and z, as well as any combination thereof.